Читать книгу Mahler in love with Monroe? - C.-A. Rebaf - Страница 7

Herbert Gerstenmayer was angry. He got up very early today to be in the lab for the meeting scheduled 8:00 am with his boss. It was a long way there from the seventh district, where he lived in the Myrthengasse in an old house ruin. Since there was no public transport after the catastrophe here in the Austrian capital, it was tedious every morning to walk to the Ring and then head towards the Rennweg through the ruins. But he had done it in time today, and now the boss was not there yet!

His assistant Christiane was released from these meetings, in which every fortnight the new project steps were defined. Herbert then had to translate these into concrete daily work units for her.

It was spooky in the huge molecular biology laboratory deep underground, which had moved into a ten-story deep, nuclear-safe bunker just before the catastrophe. Only a few people worked here. The supernatural new buildings of the old biocenter had not survived and collapsed completely. But the science in the underground, which had made great progress shortly before the catastrophe by close cooperation of the University of Vienna with some major US investors, could be maintained, though not all projects had survived. The investors saw a particularly strategic location of the old k. u. k. capital as a gateway to Eastern Europe and pumped billions of dollars into ethically disputed cloning projects. To protect against the resistance of groups such as Greenpeace, which crippled more and more aggressively entire research facilities, it was decided therefore to move the research down into the earth in a bunker and secretly continue to work in perfect stealth, while in the supernatural Biocenter to camouflage was switched to harmless green biotechnology. All environmental groups could could be deceived perfectly. The secrecy worked excellently. However, no one had guessed at the time that the nuclear research of some emerging nations had progressed so far that it could have come to disaster. By this way biotechnology survived in Vienna, and research continued to flourish.

Herbert fumbled with his lab notebook and looked at his latest results, which he had recorded in his exact scientific writing. Previously he had written everything with the computer, but today the valuable computer capacity was strictly regulated. The weak electric light that illuminated the lab was already luxury enough in the aftermath. It was only thanks to the extraordinary commitment of Prof. Baum, Herbert's boss, that the emergency generator was coupled with several wood gasifiers and so the necessary energy for the operation of the computers and laboratory equipment in the bunker could be generated. A whole crew of heaters worked there. However, just in the transitional period, a major bottleneck had prevailed, and some projects had to be discontinued. "Why doesn’t come the old man today?", Herbert wondered, as Christiane, his assistant, rushed into the lab with a song on his lips. It was already 9:30 am, and she was surprised that Herbert was not putting his heads together with the old man - as usual on Monday. "What's going on?" She asked in surprise, tying her brunette curls to a hair tie she held between her teeth, which made the words squirt out a little crushed and Herbert did not understand. "What did you mean?" He asked. "Where is the old man today?", She formulated again and put on her clean yellow lab coat.

"No idea," replied Herbert. "I'm pissed off because today, for once, I was punctual. Ironically now the old man seems to be late." "Delayed?" she mocked. "When did you meet?" "At 8 o'clock, as usual," answered Herbert, and his answer sounded mildly worrisome. "Then this is no longer a delay," she added. "I know, but what should we do?" "You used to be able to call in these cases, even with a cell phone! But today, life is just waiting and racing, "she tried a joke. "Well, I've had enough of the 'wait' now, so I'm going to 'race'," he countered. "Do you know where the old man lives?" "Not exactly, but somewhere in the direction of the Danube Island, I think. Maybe we should wait. He's always so reliable and I'm sure he'll show up soon." "You're welcome to help me feed the new stem cells. Last week you gave me a huge experimental approach, I almost can not do it; and if I do not dilute the cells in time, they go hops, you know that too. What have you dug up again for great genomes that we need so many cells right now?" "You know, the old man does not tell me that either! But before I look after him, I'll help you better. Maybe he will come then too. "Herbert put on his yellow coat and threw on the two sterile benches. These are tables with a plastic case, open at the front, where sterile air is constantly being blown from behind. For the cultivation of cells in appropriate sterile culture vessels, these devices, also called 'flows' in the laboratory chargon, are absolutely necessary, so that the cell culture when opening the vessels can not get through the many small creatures that always fly around in the air into the vessels. The sterility of the tables must be checked regularly with a wipe test, which Gerstenmayer has just carried out to measure the hopelessly non-existent contamination, while Christiane placed the containers with the embryonic stem cells out of the incubators on a thermally insulated cart and slid on the two flows. Herbert fetched the bottles of fresh nutrient media and both scientists began work. It was amazing that such research was "after" still possible. Unfortunately, bottlenecks in reagents or consumables often occurred, and everyone had to improvise. But the bottom line was that they were very successful, even under commercial aspects. If the old investors had survived the catastrophe, they would have rubbed their hands and made huge profits on the stock exchange that no longer existed. Only vaguely, the two guessed what their boss did with the fertilized Humanzellen in times when children really could not be born naturally. Every expert knew how delicate the human act of procreation was from a purely biochemical point of view, and how sensitive he was to radioactivity, not to mention interpersonal complications. Almost every day, the finished cells were picked up and taken away with a special Paco. He had even a kind of freezer in the back to get the cells. At noon, they were just finished feeding the cells, a call came through the in-house telephone network, which also worked. Christiane and Herbert already thought, now the old man came back, but it was not him, but one of the gatekeepers, who informed Herbert that an unknown gentleman wanted to speak to Professor Baum.

"Prof. Baum is not here. We miss him. He wanted to be there by 8:00 this morning, but he did not come. That is very unusual! What does the Lord want?" "He does not tell me. Perhaps you will come to me better and talk to the stranger yourself," answered the porter. "I go quickly to the gate, Christiane." Herbert reported to her, took off his coat and went to the staircase, not without secretly looking at Christiane again. He liked what he saw: her full-bodied, almost baroque body and her full breasts, which were clearly visible even in the waisted, high-necked lab coat. He could not rationalize what he felt for his colleague, but in his stomach he always registered butterflies at their sight, and that indication should actually be a clear statement of his unconscious. He was sure to hold back his feelings because he did not feel he could land with Christiane. Especially lately it was very repellent and at times it smelled strangely ‘fishy’ when it rustled in the morning and they came very close together carrying the heavy containers together. He always had the fantasy that she did not have time to take a shower in the morning or that she did not want to lose that smell as a reminder of the previous night. Actually, he did not know anything about her except that she was a reliable and creative employee. At the top, a man stood in a dark, long leather coat and black hat in the entrance and strolled up and down tense. Gerstenmayer spoke to him, but the stranger behaved extremely strangely and impolitely. He did not give his name and immediately wanted to speak to the professor. It was very important, even vital, he said hectically. He spoke with a British accent. When Gerstenmayer tried to make it clear to him that the boss had not yet appeared in the lab today, and even dropped an agreed appointment, the stranger became white-chested and quickly tried to get rid of Gerstenmayer in order to get away. "If he shows up, please try to contact me as soon as possible. Please tell Café Servus about the Haydn memorial near the former Maria Hilf church and just say that you have a message and tell me where to meet the professor. "He then struck put the coat together in front and let Gerstenmayer stand like a poodle. "Unfriendly contemporary," he growled. Instead of going back to the lab, he asked the porter for the phone and informed Christiane that he wanted to look at Baum now. Gradually Gerstenmayer worried. There was really only one explanation that explained his boss's behavior, except for the one that claimed disaster again. But he wanted to make sure and made his way to Baum's apartment near the former United Nations City.